Tonya

Vacation

Posted on May 15, 2014 Written by Tonya

I have sipped wine at Les Deux Magots cafe in Paris, climbed a pyramid in Egypt, laid like broccoli pool side in Hawaii, marveled at the Grand Canyon, sounded like a fool using my broken Spanish in Cabo San Lucas and got caught in the freezing rain with my three year old in Vancouver.

Growing up overseas gave me the travel bug and I have always loved it! I believe wanderlust is a wonderful thing. But vacations can be different and I’ve taken many kinds of trips… there are girl’s trips, couples retreats, action-packed tourist attractions rich with history, two-fer destinations, where you get to see family and friends but also the opportunity to explore a new place, road trips, camping excursions and good old fashioned long weekends.

Who doesn’t love vacation? If we are lucky we get away a couple of times a year and it’s never enough. Vacation recharges us, makes the everyday bearable, gives us something to look forward to, get in shape for and save up for. Vacation is glorious!

13 Things I Love About Vacation (in no particular order):

1. No schedule.

2. No laundry.

3. No meal planning, grocery shopping or cooking!

4. Hotels.

5. Room service (on occasion).

6. The experience to see, do and try new things (food, culture, environment or activity).

7. Being on vacation means my family is all together and we’re bonding.

8. Getting to meet new people and possibly making lifelong friends.

9. Procuring souvenirs or small trinkets that will forever remind us of our time away.

10. Making lasting memories.

11. The opportunity to take great photographs.

12. Being out of touch for a while. I don’t know about you, but I rarely watch the news or pay attention to headlines when I’m away from home and I try to unplug too.

13. Finding inspiration to create, write, laugh, let go and just be.

Taken Labor Day weekend, 2013 – La Jolla, California

I love this passage from Wanderlust For One:

Travel is not just recreation. It is re-creation. Through travel, I come face to face with the unknown and the unfamiliar disrupts the familiar. Travel throws me off balance while helping me to find it again. It reawakens my childlike wonder and reaffirms my sense of self. Travel makes me approach my life with a fresh perspective. It deconstructs my cozy, comfortable existence and teaches me…

What do you love about vacation?

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop Prompt 2.) List 13 things you love about vacation.

On Turning 30

Posted on May 11, 2014 Written by Tonya

My sister, Leah turned 30 in March (I’ve been working on this post since before then!) and that’s huge! I am happy for her and the new decade that lies ahead. Everything seems to be going really well in her life right now.

There are almost 12 years between me and my sister and it has been both a delightful and sometimes agonizing process to watch her grow into the woman she is today.

Our parents would be very proud of her and how strong our bond is as sisters.

As I wrote in Leah’s birthday card, I remember turning 30 and what a strange, sad and yet magical year it was, not to mention the nine that followed.

In some ways it seems eons ago and in others as though it were just yesterday.

I celebrated my 30th birthday with family and what I thought at the time were close friends surrounding a tepan table. I don’t remember any gifts I received that night but I distinctively remember feeling equal parts anxious and excited about the next 10 years of my life.

I talk to no one who was at that dinner today except my sister. My (at the time soon to be ex-) husband and in-laws were there and several people that are now only “Facebook friends”. The two most important guests were my parents and they died five years later during the not so magical part of my 30’s.

I was 30 when my first husband and I parted ways, I started wearing clothes that fit me because I was finally comfortable with my body, I had a job I adored at an advertising agency and I met and made friends with women that I couldn’t have imagined would become so important to me in the next decade and the one after that. I lived alone for the first (and only time) in my life and loved every minute of it!

Before I turned 31 I would meet my now husband and experience love like I had never known, but before that I would curse the time I wasted with my ex because I thought he was “The One” and my only shot at having a family. Clearly I was delusional. I also had other demons to fight and I struggled to find solid ground in the workplace and my bank account. 30 (and beyond) is when it all came together for me, I was no longer a child and came to understand that life is not always fair and that’s okay. Fair doesn’t leave any room for grace or mercy.

Happy Birthday, again, my sweet Leah. I hope your decade is off to a exceptional start and only gets better.

Leah & I celebrating her 30th birthday at Little Sister, Manhattan Beach – March, 2014

My Mama

Posted on May 10, 2014 Written by Tonya

As I open the box, I recognize the musty scent immediately. It is full of old family photographs, some with faint pen markings on the back.

Dates and locations:

Birthday ’75

Easter 1977 – Park Mall, Tucson

Summer ’94

Many are left blank so it’s a guessing game for me.

I’m on a mission although I don’t quite know what it is yet.

Like my memories, the images have started to yellow over time.

Stack after stack, I begin to make piles.

Photos of my mother.

Photos of me and my mother.

There are not many of either.

I keep telling myself that it was a different time, the early 1970’s. Cameras were expensive. Having photos developed was expensive. There was no selfie, let alone smart phones with cameras built in.

Still it makes me sad. I wish there were more photographs of me with my mother, especially as a baby. I also wish I hadn’t been such a ~~shit~~ teenager whenever dad pulled out the camera.

This Mother’s Day will be my seventh without my mom and fifth as a mother myself. The holidays and milestones are always the hardest. It’s bittersweet leading up to the actual day as thoughts of my mother and our relationship consume me.

I miss her.

I encourage you to spend the day with the mothers in your life and make mental and physical memories. Someday your children will want to reminisce and look at old pictures of you and them together.

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, grandmas, great grandmas, step moms, foster moms, mothers to be, those longing to be mothers and those who have lost their moms.

But especially my mom.

Things I Do At 4 In The Morning

Posted on May 8, 2014 Written by Tonya

We are so lucky, Lola is an excellent sleeper. She goes for 4-5 hour stretches each night, which means she’s only up twice, around midnight and 4 o’clock. My husband and I take turns and typically I have an easier time getting her to go back to sleep but after she has been fed and burped and changed and kissed and rocked, I am wide awake!

Try as I might to will myself back to sleep, never turning on a light or the television, lying still and breathing deeply, most nights I fail miserably.

And I know I shouldn’t grab for my phone, but it’s right there on the nightstand beguiling me. So here’s what I do at 4 in morning:

Respond to text messages… I know, a little but but better late than never.
Unsubscribe to unwanted promotional e-mails.
Meal plan.
Write partial blog posts.
Research soon-to-be expired Groupons I’ve purchased.
Look up answers to curious four-year-old questions, like knock-knock jokes, if fish sleep (they do, BTW) and birthday party themes.
Play Words With Friends (thank you to those who are up at the same time!).
Read, thanks to my Kindle app (!).
Order stuff…. diapers mostly but lately several packages have arrived at our house that I don’t exactly recall ordering. With the Amazon.com and Diapers.com apps, it is just far too easy, not to mention expensive!

Time to keep my phone downstairs.

Outside.

In the trunk of my car.

Complete

Posted on May 5, 2014 Written by Tonya

Flowers have started to bloom in the front yard and the trees have grown in the back.

We know which rooms get the most sunlight during the hottest part of the day.

The furniture in the living room has been rearranged for better flow. Twice.

Our belongings fill every cupboard and closet.

In the middle of the night the sounds aren’t so foreign.

We’ve met our neighbors, mailman and trash collectors.

We’ve learned the quickest route to the freeway and have a favorite restaurant within walking distance.

We are settling in.

Our new house isn’t so new anymore.

We have been here since mid-November and at the time, it was all about getting ready for Thanksgiving and then rushing to put up Christmas decorations and host the holiday (which sounds way more dramatic than it was… It was just my in laws, sister and her boyfriend for a couple of days) and then we were eager to take down decorations and focus wait for the baby.

Lola arrived the end of January and our house suddenly felt more like a home.

My husband put her crib together last weekend and her room is slowly starting to come together.

But it was only once we started putting pictures up on the walls recently that we started to feel more comfortable, like this was home, the right purchase for our family and a place where we could stay a while and make beautiful memories.

It’s a lovely process, making a house a home and truly feeling like your house is home.

Or maybe I’m just starting to feel more complete than I have in a long while.

Thank You’s

Posted on May 2, 2014 Written by Tonya

My latest crush is on Jimmy Fallon (see yesterday’s post for 10 reasons why) and I love his segment on Fridays where he writes thank you notes. He’s essentially mocking the practice by thanking everything from…

Peer pressure, for being totally not cool. Unless my friends think it’s cool, then it’s pretty cool I guess

Jeopardy, for being the most entertaining way to remind me of how stupid I am.

For more, click here.

Here is my own list of thank you’s… some serious, some not so much and none as funny as Fallon.

Thank you to:

Gardeners who turn off their leaf blowers and loud tree trimmers when I walk by pushing Lola in a stroller, but my own, even after talking to him about it still can’t grasp the concept of a sleeping baby.

The litterbug who threw their empty American Spirit cigarette box on the street prompting a lively discussion with my four-year-old not only about the dangers of smoking, the importance of picking up after ourselves but also the relationship between cowboys and Indians.

Drive-thru Starbucks! Seriously, I don’t know if God exists, but if he does, he gave moms the drive-thru.

The man standing at the urinal who completely ignored me when I barged in with my two kids in tow. Oops. I really need to learn to read signs!

The girl at the park who called me “ma’am”. As if my tired bones, dark circles under my eyes, gray roots and flabby postpartum gut haven’t been making me feel old enough. Sigh… For future reference, that salutation is never okay.

The even younger girl at Yogurtland with your ass hanging out of your shorts and your midriff showing, you gave me something to think about when Lola is your age. NOTE TO SELF: Buy all of your daughter’s clothes!! Oh, and two things: yes, you’re hot and no, you are NOT dressed appropriately, not that you were wondering or care! Shame on your father, the man I presume and hope you were with for letting you leave the house dressed like that.

Solar power, you rock! With the 90+ degree days we’ve been having lately, running our AC doesn’t make me tailspin into panic at the thought of our energy bills.

Lola’s bowels that seem to know exactly when we are running late and headed out the door and decide to let loose, if you know what I mean. O_o

What are you “thankful” for?

I Heart Jimmy

Posted on April 30, 2014 Written by Tonya

As a busy and sleep deprived mom of two, I don’t have nearly as much time as I used to to read magazines or even my Twitter feed to find out what’s going on in the world. I have also stopped watching many of my favorite shows, but there is one that I DVR religiously… The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. I have laughed my way through every single episode since he took over on February 17, 2014 and I look forward to it each day. Of course, I’m day behind, but at least I feel hipper watching it.

I grew up begging to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson host the now 60 year old Tonight Show but not because I really cared about the show or guests, but because my parents did. I never tuned in to Jay Leno because I didn’t connect with him. I respect the Tonight Show institution and when I heard Fallon was taking over, I knew he’d breathe new life into it and do a stellar job in the process.

If you’re not watching, you should be!

10 things I love about The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon:

1. Fallon was amazing on SNL and has proven to have impeccable comedic timing.

2. His monologue keeps me on top of entertainment and world news. He also “gets” social media and uses pop culture references that I appreciate and identify with. This must be why my parents enjoyed Carson. A host you can relate to equals good entertainment.

3. He’s goofy, funny, cute, and so talented. I wish he were my neighbor!

4. I adore his childlike enthusiasm for his awesome guests. He genuinely gets visibly starstruck and it’s super adorable.

5. He doesn’t just conduct boring interviews, he makes his guests do wacky things like roller golf, participate in lip-synching contests, and play flip cup and beer pong.

6. His bromance with Justin Timberlake. Together they are truly unstoppable and hilarious. Case and point: History of Rap 5.

7. His impressions. Have you seen his Tom Petty or Vladimir Putin?

8. The endearing way he talks about his daughter and fatherhood.

9. His banter with his sidekick, Higgins. When the two of them go at it, it can be pee in your pants funny. They have an incredible connection and none of their playful back and forth is scripted.

10. This video (okay, so it’s from his old show, but still)…. Dave Matthews GPS spoof.

This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop, Prompt 5) List 10 things you love about your favorite show.

She Writes

Posted on April 29, 2014 Written by Tonya

Elaine of The Miss Elaine-ous Life tagged me in her recent post on writing and the timing couldn’t be better as I am exploring what I want to do with my blog and writing in general.

I used to consider myself just another mommy blogger and then I learned to abhor that title and then I considered myself just a writer because at the time and for several months I was getting paid to write. Now I’m not sure what I am. I write as many blog posts as I can but I’m having difficulty finding the time anymore and when I do write I am super critical of my work.

My goal has always been to write from the heart or not at all. I believe I’m known in the blogosphere as that girl that lost both her parents tragically and/or that girl that battled and then beat(!) her secondary infertility. I was lucky enough to have my own infertility column at SheKnows for close to a year. My articles can still be found here. I am most proud of those posts.

1. What am I working on?
I’m always working on a blog post in my head or sleep or shower and have over 80 drafts… some are just a sentence or two or idea for a topic I want to explore in more depth and others are several paragraphs long but I am still editing and reediting and making myself bonkers over.

2. How does my writing differ from other’s of it’s genre?
Simple, my writing is mine. My words. My story. My life. There are many bloggers/writers that are better at their craft than I am but I believe the more I write, the better I’ll get.

The very best compliment that I have received about my blog and writing is that I write exactly the way I talk. I like that.

3. Why do I write what I do?
In the first year of Letters For Lucas, my posts were literally that, letters to my son, Lucas. I wanted to document his life and how motherhood was shaping me, or should I say, reshaping me. It has since grown and evolved and became a place that I truly treasure. Nowadays I only visit and share sporadically and when it comes to my writing and what I share, sometimes I need to write what I do to get it out of my head, to document it and other times I just want to because it’s fun.

4. How does my writing process work?
I love when the words just flow out of me, when there’s little thought and lots of emotion, when I don’t second guess myself or scrutinize over every word. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does, it’s magic! Usually wine is involved.

For me, if and when I get to the point where I press <publish> then I’ve succeed and beyond that, the feedback and reaction I get to what I’ve shared is what I thrive on.

Thanks, again, Elaine for asking me about my writing process.

Now it’s your turn…. Natalie of Mommy of a Monster and Coreen of The Adventures of Captain Fussypants & Little Miss, tell us about your writing process!

Room For Two

Posted on April 28, 2014 Written by Tonya

It’s all brand new and very scary when you bring your first born home, so I knew I’d be more confident the second time around. I knew I wouldn’t be plagued with so much worry and anxiety. I knew I’d be a more relaxed parent having been Lucas’s mother for four and a half years prior to Lola’s arrival. What I didn’t know was that being a mother to two would be very different and sometimes very difficult, no matter how far apart in age they are or how much I think Lucas “gets it”.

Before Lola was born I truly agonized over how I would or could love two children equally and so that they would know it and they would feel it. I confided with seasoned mothers and was repeatedly told the same thing… you just will.

They were right.

It started happening gradually while I was still pregnant and then the moment our eyes met for the first time, I was completely head over heels in love with my daughter. It was as though my heart stretched and grew and all of a sudden, like magic, there was equal space for two.

The loving is the easy part… making sure they know is hard.

According to Lucas, I talk to Lola differently. I coo and swoon and my voice gets higher yet softer, perhaps sounding more loving to him than the way I talk to him. He has declared more than once since Lola joined our family that I love her more than him. He has never said this while I am trying to console and meet her newborn needs but rather in a moment when I’m apparently gushing over her.

This breaks my heart.

It would be awesome if I could reassure him that that was a ridiculous notion, that I used to talk to him the same way when he was her age and that often, I still do, but he’s a big boy now, but that explanation doesn’t satisfy his four year old heart and mind. So, I say all that and tell him that he is my #1 boy and she is my #1 girl (thank goodness we have one of each!) and then I stop loving on Lola and turn my full attention to him, hugging and kissing him and calling him sweet names. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

He said it again over this past weekend and so in an effort to explain to him how I feel and how I am able to fit everyone in, I drew this heart:

Room for two and then some…

See, I told him, equal space for you and Lola and Daddy and everything and everyone else has their spot too, but they aren’t nearly as important. I think he understood.

For now.

How or what do you do to help your children feel your equal love?

Let Her Sleep…

Posted on April 24, 2014 Written by Tonya

Before Lola was born, Wednesday was one of my favorite days because it’s the only day Lucas doesn’t go to school and it was just us. Since Lola’s arrival, Wednesdays are tough, especially for her.

Poor girl is in and out of the car for big brother’s swim lessons, in and out of the car for his My Gym class; there’s lots of waiting around while he gets to have all the fun, she has her diapers changed in public restrooms, feedings on the go and put up with general chaos. I take her out of her car seat and she loves to watch him and everything else going on around us, but it’s not familiar surroundings and she fusses a lot.

Yesterday I made time for us to be home in middle of all of our Wednesday activities for a little while. Lucas played with Lego quietly and I did a few things around the house. Lola enjoyed scooting around (not quite able to roll over) on the guest bed cooing as happy as can be. I hung out with her for a while and then left for a few moments and returned to the most magical sight:

I don’t seek these moments out but when they find me, they take my breath away. After soaking it in I grabbed my camera.

I could not love this little girl more.

On Turning 30

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